How to get a smooth reflecting surface?
Your problem is absolutely topology related. I see 2 things going on that are causing your shading issues. Firstly, there are triangles mixed with quads - this usually causes problems, especially around edges and areas that will be shaded smoothly - both of which are true in your case. Secondly, it seems you have formed the &quot;blade&quot; by moving the front faces away from the rest of the mesh. This has left non-planar (impossible shape) faces along the edges of the blade. I suggest you begin with topology looking like this: notice - all quads.

When starting with this shape, you can extrude the &quot;blade&quot; area instead of moving it. This will not create any non-planar faces.

From there, you can move and scale the blade section down to your desired size.

After this, it's almost done, but to make nice edges, you probably want to select the areas I've highlighted below, and inset them slightly (0.001 was good enough for me).

To make the rest of it look as clean as possible, I would also recommend adding edge loops - one around the edge of the &quot;hilt&quot; where it meets the front (blade containing) face, and one more along each end of the blade itself. (I put one in the center of the blade and beveled (CTRL+B) to make it into 2 lines, and then dragged until they were almost at the ends).

Here is the end result with smooth shading, and even a subdivision surface modifier.

Hope this helps.